Al Pacino is at his best as the blind, drunken, vicious, heroic and suicidal Col. Frank Slade in “Scent of a Woman.”

In a chilling scene, Pacino puts his service .45 pistol to his head, only to be stopped by his student caretaker. As he throws the caretaker against the wall, Pacino cries out in anguish:

“I’m in the dark here! You understand? I’m in the dark!”

Slade thinks his useful life left with his sight. While he’s wrong, who can imagine the pain of never seeing a sunset again?

Since society needs the next Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder or Stephen Hawking, society should not burden disabled people with stabbing reminders of their disabilities. This brings me to the Tuesday-Thursday section of Communicative Disorders 200: Disability and Society.

I interviewed Greg Long, the class’s professor, who has a Ph.D. in psychology. He said he had experienced great trouble getting the closed captioning to work on the video player in Wirtz Hall 101. He said it took over 45 minutes and a visit from an Information Technology Services employee to find the control.

So, the teacher for a Communicative Disorders class can’t get closed captioning in a smart classroom.

“Even when he found it, it didn’t work,” Long said of the control, which has since been fixed. “[That’s] the first thing that tells me no one is using it.”

Indeed. Long polled his students and found many hadn’t seen closed captioning in other classes.

It might be because of how the system works. The Center for Access Ability Resources is responsible for closed captioning. Its handbook says a student must confirm his or her disability with official documentation, fill out information forms and go to an orientation meeting before anything happens.

That is a great deal of effort just for some captioning. Long thinks many people don’t request assistance because they don’t like telling people about their disability, even in confidence. No one wants to admit to a disability.

Long’s students, hearing-impaired or not, seem to be in favor of more captioning. Long took a poll on the class’ Blackboard server, and 115 students voted that the presence of captioning would make classes easier for all students, versus the four students who voted to the contrary.

Sixteen students e-mailed me with their opinion, and almost all liked the idea of captioning in the classroom. Many said they aren’t hearing impaired, but captioning helps them learn.

Sophomore accountancy major Dubravka Aleksic said closed captioning helps her because English is her second language. Regarding disabled students, she added, “I’m positive that there [are] some great students, but they need help more than I do. Don’t we all?”

Freshman nursing major Jacquelyn Majesty and freshman journalism major Teri Barr said people close to them are hearing impaired and would have benefited from captioning.

Sophomore communication major Allison Niedzielko thinks it’s helpful in a big lecture hall, where acoustics are poor.

Sophomore business administration major Brett Adkins thinks captions are annoying if acoustics aren’t a problem, but a great idea if they are. He liked them, as long as there’s the option of turning them off.

Freshman accountancy major Courtney Nelson and senior sociology major Rachel Radionoff agreed with Long, saying people with disabilities don’t like disclosing them.

Long wants captioning to be the norm, not the exception. ITS Associate Director Elizabeth Leake agrees, saying, “I support Dr. Long’s suggestion to turn captioning on as ‘default’ on all systems so that everyone can benefit from closed captioning.”

There’s a point there. Illinois doesn’t make people in wheelchairs sign written forms, then find them convenient parking. Instead, parking is reserved in advance.

Long doesn’t want to disrespect CAAR. He thinks it’s doing a fine job and he thinks NIU does an average to good job providing for accessibility. However, if NIU made closed captioning a default option in classrooms, they would be doing an outstanding job. “If we can make a difference,” Long said, “it’s a minor thing to do, but it can have a large impact.”

NIU has the power to take Col. Slade out of the dark. Or Beethoven out of the silence for some individuals.

Columns reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the Northern Star staff.